To Touch a Prism
by Lumiere de Venise
Summary: Seeing a rainbow through a prism you're holding does not mean you can truly touch it. (Harry sad about James. For The Golden Snitch Forum's "Father Day" Event. No particular setting for this, but definitely not before the first three books.)


**[AN:]**** So, "The Golden Snitch Forum" has a "Father's Day Fic Contest" ****which has a deadline on July 1st, and while my application hasn't been sorted yet, I had to join in on this! I made this June 22nd but I'm uploading it now so I don't forget or not have enough time to.**

**(Edit: Got into Ravenclaw. Yay!)**

**[Author:] Lumiere de Venise**

**[House:] Ravenclaw.**

**[Title:] To Touch a Prism**

**[Fandom:] Harry Potter**

**[Genre:] Angst, Tragedy**

**[Prompt:] **"Father's Day"—Write ****a story about a character's father and the child's relationship with their father.****

**{I used the characters Harry and James Potter, though James is not physically in the story. Lily Potter is somewhat included, despite not being able to count for this event.}**

**{I used #1. #2, #4, and #12 on the 'Prompts List.'}**

** -#1: Broken**

** -#2: Light**

** -#4: Blue**

** -#12: Quill**

**[Ship:]**** None. This is a father-son relationship (Not of any romantic kind) between Harry Potter and James Potter.**

**[Rating:] T for mentions of death and rather depressing analogies.**

**[Summary:] A rainbow through a prism does not mean you can truly cup it. (A short fanfic that I actually did not write with a specific book in mind, but I believe by the wording would fit best around Ootp. Sorry about that, I feel like I don't write HP quite well. I myself haven't celebrated Father's Day in 8 years, so it was hard for me to write this cheerfully. Sorry...)**

**[Word Count:]**** 651 words/1.5 (Originally Arial, 1.5, and 11 size font.)**

**[Disclaimer:] I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I or will I ever profit from this fan work.**

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IT WAS A VERY MOROSE SIGHT when your father was a man who you could embrace with only by landing your fingers on a transparent, slightly smudged glass that was protecting a mere picture.

The spectacle(s) was with color, with laughter, with movement, with _sentience, _and yet the memories that the "Boy-Who-Lived" had of each one were not even on the same level of thick, detailing-letting spirals that corrupted and jumbled out of a cassette.

No matter what picture it was, how long the magical photographs would loop over and over and over _and over and over_ again, and especially the degree of how "sentimental" and somber the decade ago pictures could make the orphan, nothing would be the same as the real thing.

Nothing _ever _was, and him barely remembering the "real thing" made it worse.

He could break the glass that was concealing the image, he really could. He could just shatter it and watch the pieces _fall fall fall _to the ground and then, like a clueless child, throw his fingers unto the faces of not only his father but his mother.

Broken glass is not a fixed structure, however.

No matter how much pain that could inflict if he accidentally cuts himself with the prisms of both the glass and of the verity, it will not mean that what he is feeling is truly his father's lovely face or his mother's smooth locks as he grips and wrinkles the photo.

Feeling what they left behind doesn't make it pragmatic or permanently comforting either.

Pictures don't raise your mother and father from the shared grave they never deserved to be rested in, nor do the images remake the flesh that once was above their now insect-crawled skeletons. Pictures do not amount to the _pat-pat-pat-on-the-hurting-back_ a true father could give.

After all, a picture is a thousand words, but when the pictures of your parents and you are from a time that is not even black inks in your retentiveness, wouldn't just having them _breathing breathing breathing _and _happy happy happy _be much fitter for a child?

He could forget about writing letters to the deceased as well. No amount of quills could be used at the moment, even if they belonged to his parents _themselves,_ that would add up to the feeling of writing to a father that could genuinely feel and take the paper from him.

…

Harry slightly flinched at the light from outside his dorm room that suddenly came out and blocked his father's face from view. He moved a tad backwards on his bed and tried very hard to ignore the possible tingles of water that dared to slightly fall from behind fogged-lenses.

On the topic of aqua, ironically he remembered the powder-blue of their pallid, eerie yet comforting spirits and the ice-blue of their desired, eye catching reflections in the Erised mirror better than what little he could conjure of his parents in color.

Pitiful, it was, for colors to be more foreign to emerald-green eyes that could shine in areas as dark as the night sky. For the shades of the primary color to shape his life more than the real thing.

It was harrowing and it was poignant, and it was also annual and expecting for Harry to feel all this on certain days, especially the day today. The dreadful feelings never stopped to pounce on him like he was their _little little _prey.

Whether or not he liked it, this was how he would spend Father's Day—eyeing heavily at who he wished to show a little self-made card and a "I love you, I'm thankful for you dad" face to face, but also feeling reality drag its vicious-yet-veracious-shaped nails unto his heart.

Holding a prism that reflected rainbows didn't mean that you could go run your hands through the seven colors and feel something other than you respond, sadly.

**[End.]**

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**[Ending AN:] Much shorter than I thought it was, but I do better in works where "less is more" for me, due to incorporating my style in poetry into shorter bits. I hope you all enjoyed this. Constructive criticism is extremely welcomed. Ciao. :)**


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